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Thursday, March 1, 2012

Food Waste Friday and Avocado for Beauty...

One of the blogs I read regularly is The Frugal Girl, where Kristen writes about "living cheerfully on less". She has something called "Food Waste Friday", which I thought I'd try out in the attempt not to waste food.

Next to it is my avocado face mask. Talking about using avocado for beauty (Particularly to those in the midst of N. hemisphere winter) might be like saying one eats kittens, but this avocado was very nearly food waste. Noah stepped on it when it was super ripe. Don't ask. Anyway, I used half of the salvageable bits for my hair (Some Avocado + egg yolk, leave on hair for 20 minutes, wash out) and half for face masks (Some Avocado + 1 egg white, leave on face for 20 minutes, wash out- the face mask has enough in there for 2 or 3 masks). I consider it a triumph, because the avocados are not quite in season yet- they'll be at their best later in the month.

And, the leftover bagged salad froze. I'm struggling to find the right setting for the fridge, and the top shelf is currently too cold. Getting bagged salad is a source of shame in the first place, so I'm not sure I'll do it again. It's not quite the right amount for Eug and I (Noah isn't big into leaves yet)- there's always a little left and it's unlikely either of us will voluntarily bust out a solo salad. So it's probably fruit (lots of fruit) and cooked vegetables for us, until our home-grown greens come in.

And here's the fridge after shopping! All our other foods are either in buckets (fruit and veg) or in the freezer (rice, flour, sourdough bread, sugar, lentils)

Hi! The bucket has mainly onions, garlic and potatoes and butternut, which like it cool and dry and dark anyway. We are usually eating our food within 2 weeks- that's the maximum a food would be in the house out of the freezer. The fruit is largely in a box, and never lasts more than a week.

Hi Becca! Yes, named after Brody in Homeland. He's been around about 3 months, and we use him once or twice a week. I've found it helps just not to be too intimidated, and also that if he starts separating usually that means I need to add some flour. I feed him twice a day (about 1/2 cup flour and a little tap water each time) since it's summer here.

He's still pretty young, so I tend to use more in recipes than the recipes call for, then adjust the volume of liquid accordingly. I usually keep him out for about 24 hours before using him for bread- and I'll make sourdough pancakes, pizza or naan the day before I bake bread. Then he goes back into the fridge until we're almost out of bread.